Art of the Gear - Part 2 Eating

As I stated in a previous post, I love good food.  I not only love eating good food, I love making good food.  I have a great appreciation for well made home cooking.  That does not say I do not appreciate the masters of haute cuisine and their over-the-top radical creations, I just am not in that league in either skill or pallete.

I will pay for a well stacked hamburger over the tenderest filet mignon, even if it were free, any day of the week.  The home cooked meal is what brings comfort and routine into our taxing lives.  Be it mac and cheese, goulash, collard greens, buscuits and gravy, fried chicken, clam chowder, grilled cheese, or even english muffin pizzas, these primal dishes are catalysts to our happiness.

The Pretentious Sage Burns His Thesarus

As the saying goes, there comes a point in every project where one must shoot the architect and start building.  Looking at my previous posts, and how long it has been since my last, I think the time has come.  I appear to have started to become that which I despise, a fancy touchy feely pretentious hack, having little practical knowledge to share sporting only an elitist attitude that is puffed up with lots of big words.

This is where I should slice away the complications, burn my thesarus, and follow my own advice of KISS, keep it stupid simple.  Not that I won't stray from the path of simplicity, but I will do my best.

So, with indifference to my audience and there mental faculties, I will stick to small words and short entries where possible, and provide many many pictures for the visually inclined.  I would hope someone shoots me the moment I start using phrases like "double plus good" however.  If you don't know what I am talking about, please become literate and read 1984 by George Orwell.  While you are at it, find a paper copy of Fahrenheit 451, and  Brave New World...if you can.  Muahahaha...

But I digress yet again...

Fat Sage on the Trail

I love food.  No, actually I am addicted to food in the most literal sense.  Mainstream science is just now catching up with what has anecdotally been know for generations and what certain fast "food" companies that serve what vaguely passes as food have probably known for decades.  In essence, fats, sugars, and salt are like cocaine and heroine to the human brain.

What's in a [trail] name...

Before the cease and desist order comes from some overpaid lawyer hired by some anal retentive media agent trying to justify their job by "protecting" the copyrights of a creative talent they probably have never met from someone who has no interest in stealing from them, let me explain the nature and reason for the trail moniker I have selected.


For those who do not know, I am an avid viewer of what most folks would call cartoons.  I grew up on them, and it is one of the last refuges I have when I feel the need to regress during an escapist mental vacation.  From Warner Bros. classic shorts like What's Opera, Doc featuring the infamous duo of Bugs and Elmer, to the feature films of Walt Disney (the person not the company) and current king of big picture classic animation Hayao Miyazaki who has

Art of the Gear - Part 1

The gear I will be examining in this part pertains to the first assumption on my list.

1. I will need to drink

This is the more simplistic aspect one will have to plan for on the trail.  It thus lends itself to the most variability of all aspects.  Every hiker will think they have the better mousetrap, and will be happy to tell you as much (like I am going to do).


First off it is the number one subject for any person anywhere on the planet to worry about,